Clinical Trials in Multiple Sclerosis

Background

Within the past 30 years, new and effective therapies have been developed for the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS). Since 1993, several compounds have been granted marketing authorization for relapsing-remitting MS patients: IFNβ-1a, IFNβ-1b, glatiramer acetate (GA), mitoxantrone, natalizumab, fingolimod and teriflunomide.

Data display

The below interactive bubble chart presents key features of the 106 clinical trials in MS that have been reported between 1985 and April 2014 in the scientific literature (New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Lancet Neurology, Neurology, etc). The cumulative number of patients who have been involved in these trials i.e. who have contributed to therapeutic breakthroughs in MS, is 44606.

A bubble chart typically displays data triplets (x, y, z) corresponding to three continuous variables: x and y to define the position, and z, the radius of each bubble. In our example, x and y coordinates are optimized according to an algorithm which essentially balances bubble's gravity (i.e.action of moving towards the center of the plot), friction (i.e.velocity decay), and charge (or repulsion/attraction force). This layout is frequently used for network visualization [1]. In addition to x, y and z, it is possible to encode other information. For instance, the color coding tell us about the trial outcome (positive, negative or 'other'), while each tab provides a different view of what the trials breakdown looks like. So, the current webpage displays data from 106 clinical trials, in 7 different ways.